


A series of number sevens

by pacoca



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26140483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pacoca/pseuds/pacoca
Summary: It's not always easy being ordinary. A Vanya character study.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 10
Kudos: 87





	1. Chapter 1

1.

Vanya has a bell that rings at exactly 7pm. 

Well, it's not a bell exactly. It's not something she can touch. It's more like a sound, or a song. A pattern of beats appearing in succession, one after the other, like the beat of a drum or the tapping of fingers on heavy wood.

Like her mother's shoes. 

_Click._

_Click._

_Click._

Grace comes knocking to her room with a tray of water and a small plate. She is perfectly poised, the one white pill on the plate is still, like gravity, like the water surface behind the clear glass. The sound of her heels trails behind her, ticking like a clock.

‘Good evening Vanya. Are you ready to take your medicine today?’ She flourishes a little as she places the tray on the bedside counter. 

Vanya nods. She’s feeling a little itchy this evening. The schedule for today involved a lot of exercise, and even Vanya wasn’t exempt from their Dad’s rigorous physical training. She thinks maybe that’s why she’s been feeling weird all evening. She’s probably flushed out all the medicine from her system from all the sweating, or at least, that's what Five told her.

She scratches her neck.

‘I’m ready.’

Grace gives her the pills and hands her the water. It tastes bitter dry, the type that travels up the nose and into the brain, clogging it up like old manure. She gulps down half of the glass to wash off the taste. 

'Thanks, Mom’, she manages.

Grace’s smile is wide and pearly. Grace looks like the girls in Vanya's books when she smiles and her skirt flares out before her like a flower in bloom.

This is the last time Grace will be coming into her room with her plate of medicine. They have been easing her into making her more independent now that she’s a little older.

‘Now, are you sure you’re all grown up to be taking your own medicine? This is a _big_ responsibility for _big_ girls. We don’t want to be missing out on our medicine now, do we?’

Vanya thinks a little.

'I think so?' She says, unsure.

She’s only 10 after all.

Grace gives her another one of her smiles. It instantly puts her at ease, or maybe that’s just the pills, drowning everything out and making everything a little fuzzy again.

‘Okay then, dear. Make sure to keep to your schedule, 7pm, on the dot!’ Her voice has its usual, bright tinkle behind it and it makes Vanya smile a little. 

‘Okay, I will.’ 

‘And don’t forget to brush your teeth before bed.’ 

‘Okay. Thanks, Mom.’ 

Grace leans down to kiss her head goodnight. She takes the tray and the glass before leaving, her shoes clicking behind her.

Vanya thinks that she feels just a little bit older than before.

  
  


2.

  
  


Vanya had never been one for fighting so it’s odd that she’s the one with the bruise on her forehead now. 

It really started with Luther and Diego.

They were fighting, _again_ , and all she wanted was for the to _just stop_ before they, hurt themselves so she moves between them and then she’s not really sure where the punch came from but the next moment she’s on her back and there’s the blood trickling between her eyelashes, shiny, sticky and wet.

Luther at least, had the decency to look ashamed.

Five comes sometime after Pogo has chased them off. She remembers the tick on his jaw, and the stern way he took the bandages off her hands and held her still beside him. Vanya almost felt the need to apologise.

The bruise did look bad. It’s purple and blotchy and it _stings_. 

She wants to cry. 

It doesn’t quite register.

Her pills do this, makes everything lag a minute behind so that she's left with the afterthought of a feeling instead of the real thing. 

It's a little like seeing the world through a wall of cotton. 

_It’s for anxiety_ , she tells herself. She’s been numbed by the pills for so long, the thought of stopping and letting the cloud in her head clear is terrifying. _It’s good for her_. She’s honestly not sure what that means but Dad says it’s important and that counts for something at least,

She rubs the corner of her eye and it forces a tear out of her.

‘You okay?’ He frowns. 

‘Yeah. It just hurts that's all.’

‘Consider it a lesson learned. Getting between those two knuckleheads automatically makes you an even worse version of stupid. Those two are morons and can’t help themselves. You should know better.’ But he puts the bandage on a little carefully this time.

Maybe she’s just a creature of habit. Vanya has been living with only half a feeling all her life and she’s just _fine_. No problems here. If given the choice, she’d go back to the pills every time. 

It’s hard to miss what you can't remember. 

Five finishes fixing her up.

‘Well, good news.’ He sits back, ‘You’ll live. You might have a bump on your head for a couple of days but I don’t see how that’s anyone’s fault but yours.’

‘Gee… thanks Five.’

He can be a real jerk sometimes. 

Five grins. He brushes the hair out of her eyes. He probably already knows she’d do it again. 

The Hargreeves are stupid like that. 

There’s a comfortable silence that settles between them. It’s a different sort from the stifling air when she slots herself between the rest of her siblings like a mismatched jigsaw puzzle, awkwardly positioned in all the ways that lets her know she doesn’t belong. Theirs is the kind that is warm and soft, wrapping around their shoulders like a fuzzy blanket.

It’s nice.

He rubs the strands of her hair between his fingers. ‘Your hair’s getting long’, he says. 

‘Yeah, I was gonna ask Mom to cut it but maybe not, you know, now that I’ve got this big bump on my head.’ 

‘Knucklehead.’ He grins. She laughs, calls him weird and swats him away. 

Something in her gut stirs. Something sweet like honey, and Vanya isn’t old enough to put a name to it yet so she tells herself that it’s probably the bruise making her head swim like this and leaves it alone.

  
  
  


3.

  
  


Five has always been a little different from the rest of her siblings. He’s always stood out in the spaces where Vanya has blended in.

Maybe it’s just a part of who he is. Number Five is too brilliant to simply waste his days blending and hiding. He’s brash and arrogant and he’s not the least bit sorry for it.

She’s a little in awe of him.

It’s not just because she’s shy. Reginald has always made it a point to keep her out of the spotlight with her family. She’s not allowed in the common room when the team is meeting. She doesn’t understand their jokes at the dinner table because how could she? When the press comes to gather at the entrance of the mansion, she’s at the other end studying geography. When she finally hits those runs she’s been hacking away for weeks, the others are on the other side of the planet saving the world.

Sometimes, she wonders if she’d have half the confidence if she’d been the least bit special. 

It’s a desperate thing to want.

Five never seems to mind though. 

He jumps to her side because he wants to, even though he’s all bloody and Mom is right there. He eats the crusts off her sandwiches because she asks. 

He dabs the blood off her forehead because she’s hurt. 

Five is brash and arrogant but he’s also kind. 

Late at night, she creeps past the dark, dimly lit hallways of the Academy and slips his favourite sandwich under his door. The foil is loud when it crumples under the doorway and for a moment she goes still, afraid that someone would come and find her. There’s no one though, and eventually, she makes her way safely back inside her room. 

Tomorrow, she can thank him properly. For now, she’s hoping he’d enjoy an early breakfast and the extra marshmallow she added on his sandwich.

  
  


4.

  
  
  


‘Hide and Seek?’

Today is their allotted, 30 minute leisure time and the kids have decided to spend it all together. They are scattered haphazardly across the gazebo in the courtyard, legs dangling lazy over the rails and the white, wooden seats. Vanya is a couple of meters away, peeking at them from behind her copy of _Peter Pan_. It’s weird to eavesdrop on them like this, but she didn’t mean to, really. She was just around the same place. And can she really help it when they talk so loud?

‘Yeah. I’m bored and it’s more fun with lots of people.’ Diego’s knife is carving, deep insistent strokes on the wooden pillars. 

‘What about Five?’ Allison asks.

‘Nah don’t call him. He _always_ cheats.’ 

Klaus nods grimly. 

‘Wait. We gotta set some off-limits areas or it’ll take too long.’

‘Really, Luther?’

It's a good day, the type of day that's bright and cool and made for sleeping on the grass or running out on the fields with the insects buzzing at your feet. Vanya has always liked the quieter side of things so she sits on the sidelines and reads the old, dusty copy of Peter Pan that Ben lent her a couple of days ago. 

But today is different. They’re playing together and she wants to join in. 

She wants to be a little louder now. 

The rational side of her, the part that swallows the pills and keeps her head down and out of trouble, is telling her it would be best not to interfere. It’s _their_ game. Maybe a long time ago, the kids would have asked her to join in, but they’re 11 now and much too important to ever bother with Vanya. But the larger part of her, the part who is just a kid wants to spend her afternoon running around with them, and they were the one who wanted more people weren’t they?

It’s decided.

She dogears her book and leaves it on the grass.

‘Hey.’ 

Her siblings are too busy arguing with each other so she tries again. 

‘Uh… guys?’ 

They stop fighting and slowly turn to look at her. The silence is stifling, even with the birds and the grass singing under the summer wind. Luther frowns. Ben gives her a little wave. 

‘What do you want, Vanya?’ Allison looks annoyed. 

‘I want to play too.’ 

‘We already got enough.’ Diego says, ‘We don’t need you.’

‘But you _said_ it's more fun with more people.’

‘Stop eavesdropping on us, hey?’ He snaps. 

‘I still want to play.’ 

Klaus shrugs, ‘Just let her play, who cares anyway.’

Vanya is just eleven but she’s always been painfully aware of her status as the _'other'._ It's not an easy feeling living life on the sidelines. The way they watch her now has an oppressive weight to it, like being caught out past curfew. She fidgets a little with her dress.

There's a murmur of indecision among the group before Luther finally turns towards her and gestures for her to join. 

Vanya beams. 

The rules are simple: Find a hiding spot before the person counts to 10 and make sure they don’t see you. It’s easy. She knows all the perfect hiding spots. She’s watched them before, and she’s seen where they like to go.

Klaus gets chosen to be ‘it’. He closes his eyes and starts counting and everybody can't help the laugh that bubbles out of their chest when he says ‘one’ and they sprint off towards different sides of the mansion. 

Vanya knows about a closet that's perfect for hiding in the third wing. It creaks a bit, but it's perfect because Klaus never likes to go down there and it's hidden inside one of the guest rooms they never use. It’s a little scary in this corridor because it's mostly empty, but Vanya knows it's harmless. 

She runs to it quickly and squeezes herself between the old, moth-eaten coats and dusty clothes. 

She waits there, her arms wrapped around her legs, stifling the cheeky giggles coming out of her mouth.

She waits.

And waits. 

And waits. 

The truth is, she hasn’t played hide and seek in a while. She’s played it maybe when they were a little younger, and Vanya wasn’t such an outcast, but it’s been a while. Now, she’s not exactly sure how long she’s supposed to wait for them to find her. 

Time ticks by. Her breathing is loud, and yet it’s so quiet she can hear the blood behind her ears. 

It’s… familiar. 

She doesn’t want to think about why. 

The only light that cuts through here is a tiny slit that peers behind the layers and layers of old clothes around her. Everywhere, the darkness seeps in, pulling her down to negative space. It’s in her clothes, in her brain, and in her lungs, squeezing on her gravity until she is pulled, desperately, helplessly, into it.

Vanya is underwater. She’s suffocating here. Her breath comes in short, shallow bursts like she’s begging, like she’s running away.

An old headache thrums beneath her eyelids like a bad memory. 

It's too much.

She steps out of the closet, her lungs seizing while she gasps for air. Her fingers are shaking when she leaves, knuckles tight as she closes the closet doors behind her. 

Vanya has to take several moments to breathe.

She thinks maybe she knows why Klaus avoids this place so much.

When she finally gathers some semblance of sanity, she swallows a breath and goes looking for her siblings.

She spots the boys easily. 

They are laughing together already when the bell rings again for their next training. 

Did they forget about her?

Ben passes her by. 

‘Hey, Vanya.’

‘Hey.’ 

‘You were hiding right? The thirty minutes was up, before we could find you. Klaus couldn’t find Luther either.’ 

‘Oh.’ 

He pats her back before he goes to join with the others. 

That makes sense. Vanya probably didn’t hear the bell because it was muffled by all the old coats she had to hide under.

But Luther is laughing though, she can hear him joking along with Klaus and Diego. He pushes his elbows against them. Luther’s smiles are playful, wide and toothy, even this far away. It's loud and bright where they are. Where Vanya is is where the sun has cast long, dark shadows that dapples the sun lit room in streaks of deep black. 

Vanya watches them with a quiet feeling slithering in her chest and she thinks that maybe she's just a little too good at hiding. 

  
  


4.

  
  


Vanya goes to Five’s room one afternoon with a tray of food.

Five is jumping from one end of the room to the other, muttering _shit shit shit_ under his breath as he shuffles through his notes with a frantic energy that could rival a lightning bolt. He's almost certainly not in a good mood. He doesn't stop working, not even after Vanya knocks on the door and lets herself in.

'What's up?' Vanya asks. 

'Problem solving.' 

She takes in the piles of notebooks stacked on his desk and the tiny pieces of paper sprawled across his bedroom floor like confetti.

'Looks like a hurricane went through here.' She picks up a piece of paper on the ground.

'Don't touch _anything_!' He snaps. 

She stops, then places it down. Five huffs and goes back to his notes.

'Can I help? I can sort out your notes if you want.'

'It's fine. I'm just stuck. These numbers aren't working out.'

'Well why not?' 

‘ _Because_ ..' his voice is dripping with frustration, ‘it just _isn't_ . These two things don’t fit _._ I can’t make it.'

'I thought I could use my old formula to back it up in case the numbers go wrong but it looks like I'll have to go back to square one.' He laughs mirthlessly, 'Shit, I should have gone over this before. I should have…'

‘Didn't you tell me your old formula could be unreliable? Why not just use the numbers you did before, the one you did in my book?'

He opens his mouth like he’s going to argue, stops, then shuffles away to thumb over the rest of his notes.

He gets like this with his work, forgets to eat or take care of himself. It’s an obsession. His nose is stuck on numbers the moment he’s out of training and everything else is secondary. 

Honestly, it’s worrying. 

She hopes he knows that there's people out here who care about him. 

‘I brought you lunch, by the way. Mom said she came by to get you food but you sent her away so I thought I’d come over.’

He doesn’t even turn to look at her. ‘If I didn’t want food then, what makes you think I’d want food now? I’m busy unravelling time and space itself, I’d rather not be disturbed.’

‘When’s the last time you ate?'’

‘What does it matter.’ 

There’s a couple of minutes of silence where Vanya just doesn’t know what to do. The room is filled with the sound of Five’s pencil scribbling away at his notes and it’s making her painfully aware of the fact that she is very much unwanted here, standing on his space, taking up his time. He's always been stubborn, and Five in this mood is almost impossible to talk to.

She looks down at the tray. The food is getting cold.

‘I’ll leave this here then.’ She places it on the empty space on his desk, ‘It’s soup. I snuck in some bread for you too if you want some.'

It's probably best to leave.

‘Wait.’

Vanya is halfway out the door when Five finally calls out to her. She stops and turns back. From here, she can see him gritting his jaw the way he does when he's frustrated and he doesn't know how to say it. 

'Stay. I'll eat. '

She smiles, 'Okay.' 

He takes the tray and puts the bowl on his lap. He still wants to work though, so he holds the spoon over his mouth with one hand, nearly dribbling it all over himself while he's halfway through turning a page on the other. He looks so silly like this, with his arm bent and his bowl wobbling precariously on his hip. She laughs, 'Here. Let me.' 

Vanya takes the spoon from his hand and he mutters a 'thanks' absentmindedly as he turns a page and opens his mouth for her at the same time. 

They're close. 

His focus is everywhere, charted across the steady lines of his skin like a diagram. She watches the hard shape of his brow, the stern crease on his forehead, and the way his eyes flicker back and forth across the page like a pendulum and even under the pills she feels an irrepressible sort of fondness for him, smart and stubborn as he is.

She blows on another serving of soup and feeds it to him. Some of it sticks to the corner of his mouth but he doesn't seem to notice.

'You've got a little…' She reaches over and wipes it off with her sleeve.

His gaze flickers towards her for a split second and she misses the way his throat bobs, stuck on something thicker than soup, as she raises another serving for him.

  
  


5.

She gets a violin-- _takes_ a violin from her father. She thinks it's sneaky of her to mention her lessons as an excuse to take it, but she hopes Dad doesn’t notice it when she keeps the instrument past when she’s supposed to. 

The violin smells like love. Like the old romance in the worn out books Allison has hid behind her wardrobe. The wood is like smooth fingers, trailing down every line, every curve with smooth sensitive precision.

When she plays it though it sounds like cats screaming. 

‘Vanya!’ Allison cries, covering her ears. Even Five was annoyed. 

‘I need to _concentrate’,_ He grits his teeth, ‘And I can’t think when you play that every time _I need to concentrate.’_

‘Yeah maybe you can play outside or something’, Klaus says, sheepish. 

She shrugs and takes her violin to the gardens. Out here, the wind picks up the noise and it reverberates past the mansion, and out into the sky beyond. 

It’s still noise, the worst kind. The loud kind. The kind that grates on the bones like nails on a board. 

(But at least it wouldn’t be forgotten)

  
  


6.

  
  
  


The silence in her room is thick like black ink and there's nights when Vanya is sure it's presence is a living, breathing thing. She could feel it plugging up her lungs with its weight, feel her throat constricting like a snake, wringing the life out of her and Vanya gasps, can't even breath in here.

It's why she's grateful for those quiet evenings when the space inside her room warps to Five's footsteps, when his presence appears out of thin air like a dream. And when the bed finally sinks under his weight, it's like the night is a little kinder to her, a little warmer too.

'Klaus snuck off at Griddy's by himself again.' Five shuffles underneath the covers and Vanya shifts to make room for him. He moves until she is sandwiched between the warm pressure of his arm and the cold surface of the wall beside her.

'Can't imagine it was for the donuts though. He's got that look again. Bloodshot eyes. Sweats like he's run a marathon. Snuck back 'round the window in the back and nobody said a word.'

'I can't believe Dad didn't find out.' Vanya says. 

'Yeah well, the old man never did give two shits about us as long as we do what he wants. Can't imagine why he'd start now.'

The silence is tense.

Vanya rolls to her side. Five is staring at the ceiling. She could feel herself drifting to sleep, listening to the soft, steady rhythm of his breathing. Her next words are soft. 'Where would you go? If you did time travel I mean, where'd you wanna end up?'

'I _will_ time travel.' He scoffs, 'Besides, the past, the future, what does it matter. Anywhere is better than this shitshow of a house.'

Vanya watches him. She memorises the sharp outline of his nose in the dark, and the way he works his jaw, anger and bitterness molded to the tense shape of his mandible.

'I'll miss you.' Vanya says.

'No you won't. You'd be too busy making a life for yourself away from this place to even remember me.'

'I won't forget.' She says earnestly. 'I'll miss you every day.' 

He doesn't look at her.

She can't quite make out the look on his face when it's dark like this but Vanya wants to think that he believes her.

She, at least, wouldn't want to live in a world without him.

She thinks Five has fallen asleep. She's surprised when his fingers search for hers in the dark. They wrap around the spaces in between, and he holds her tight, like something to keep.

They stay like that, fingers entwined on her tiny twin bed, like two captives floating across a dark sea.

  
  


7.

The day comes at the dinner table and it starts with a knife on the table and a question.

Five, for all his genius and ambition, is still just a child. He demands attention like it too because _he's ready goddammit_ and he throws a fit, trembling down to his fingertips, right there in the middle of the family dining room.

Reginald would never give it to him. And maybe it's really Vanya, shaking her head _'No'_ that hardens his resolve, she would never be sure, but it is then that Five turns on his heel and makes a decision.

She remembers the sound of his footsteps as he flings the big, wide doors of the Academy and rushes out into the world beyond.

She remembers her two, stubborn feet planted firmly on the wooden floor as he leaves.

He doesn’t come back.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

####  1.

  
  


Vanya waits for him for a long time.

Her Saturdays are quieter without him. There’s a spot in the lounge where she likes to practice and sometimes she imagines Five sitting on the couch beside her, poring over his books or going over his equations with his Einstein sort of manic, frantic energy until she’s worried he’ll wear down his pencil to dust.

She imagines him perched on her desk while she tells him about Klaus and Diego and the ants, his legs dangling above the floor and that playful gleam in his eye as he proceeds to tell her what they're going to do about it.

It's odd how a person can be everywhere and nowhere at once.

Every morning she wakes up to a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich sitting in the middle of the hallway, cold and untouched. And every night she gets up and makes him another one.

  
  
  


2.

  
  
  
  


When they're 16, Klaus and Diego start a band.

It's the closest her siblings will ever come to sharing a genuine interest with her so she jumps at it the first chance she gets.

‘I can play the violin’. She says, ‘I’m pretty good at it.' 

‘We don’t want you in our band Vanya. It’s boys only.’ 

‘At least I know how to play.’ 

_ 'We _ know how to play' Diego scoffs, 'Klaus go show her how we play'. 

Klaus does a solo on his guitar. It sounds like a cross between a cat screeching and tyres skidding across gravel.

'See?' 

'It sounds awful' She frowns. 

'It's better than yours.'

Vanya bites her lip. She just wanted to join in. She swallows her tears and turns on her heel before they could say anything else. 

Diego has always been the meanest to her. Her siblings would ignore her or tell her to go away, but Diego liked his pranks and nasty insults, and he liked targeting Vanya most of all.

It's why she's the most surprised when she finds herself admiring the shape of his back, and the rough tuff of stubble forming at the base of his jaw.

‘You like bad boys?’ Ben raises an eyebrow at her. 

‘What? No.’ 

‘Isn’t that Diego’s whole look now? He copied his whole walk from that actor, the one with the big beard.’

‘I don't….’ She frowns. She hasn’t really thought this through. ‘That’s not it.’ 

Ben looks like he doesn’t believe her. 

She’s been spending a lot of time with Ben lately. Ben is quiet and reliable. He loves books, and he loves sharing them with anyone who'll listen. Vanya enjoys the quiet afternoons they share when the sun dapples the mansion in streaks of gold, when his quiet companionship fills her with the sort of warmth that stretches her lungs, makes her breathe easier, lighter. 

He hands her the book.

There's a man on the cover wearing an open leather jacket, and a woman beside him running over his naked abs with a sort of reverence that makes Vanya blush down to her toes.

'This is a…'

'It's good.' He says simply. 'It'll help you figure things out.'

She's not sure what, exactly, he means by that.

'It's okay, Ben. Thanks.'

'Suit yourself.'

They leave it at that but she can't help sneaking quick, longing glances at the cover afterwards. 

Maybe she  _ does _ like bad boys.

Just a little.

  
  
  


3.

  
  
  
  


Ben is popular with the Academy because he’s nice and he gets along easily with everyone. He is different from Vanya, who is too quiet to be interesting, and too much of a stick in the mud to be any fun. It wouldn’t matter though if she’s not any of those things, because their father had ingrained into the children’s brains that Vanya was  _ different _ so they’d ignore her anyway.

Ben never seems to mind. 

Maybe it’s because they’re both quiet and they take solace with each other the way like-minded, quiet individuals like them can never really do with anyone else. Every afternoon Ben sits with her and they read books together or  _ he _ reads and she writes little notes on her journal. It’s nice when they talk to each other about their day, or when Ben tells her something completely ridiculous about the others that would leave her wide eyed and gaping and he just shrugs and tells her, `It's true.’ 

But unlike Vanya, Ben is still friends with the rest of the Academy. She tries to ignore the bitter pit of jealousy when he leaves her to run off with Klaus or the others, and she's left to her books and the echoing quiet of her own company.

Vanya learns to cope with the loneliness though. She swallows her pills like a good girl and keeps her head down the way Reginald wants her to.

It’s all she knows after all.

  
  


4.

  
  


She tells all this to Five though.

She goes to the lounge at night after she leaves a plate out during her nightly ritual. Then, she sits on the couch and pulls her feet up, and stares at the space between the bar and the mounted stag. 

Five is quiet, more or less. His painting, so far, had never bothered to talk back to her.

She leans back on the couch. Sometimes, she stares at the streaks of oil and paint swirling on the canvas, fusing together into something that looks like him but not quite like him. She remembers Five always had a restlessness under his skin that he can never get rid of, like putting a lid over a pot that’s already bubbling over. The painted green irises of this one, however, are too gentle.

But it’s a good enough substitute at least, to have someone to talk to who can keep her secrets. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Ben (everybody trusts Ben), it’s just that there are some things she doesn’t want to talk about with him.

‘Happy birthday.’ She says, ‘It’s our birthday today.’

An empty silence speaks back to her but by now it's familiar. 

‘The others are gone. Dad took them with him to celebrate.’

She tells Five about how the rest of the kids are all celebrating in the town hall for their birthday tonight. The celebrations are supposed to go on all night and it’d be on the newspapers first thing in the morning. The peculiar Umbrella Academy. With matching suits, matching clothes, and matching birthdays. It’s a grand, big event, with reporters and paparazzis and all sorts of entertainment. The rest of her siblings get to go on a big podium and make a grand speech, spotlights shining over them like a thousand different stars. Kids and adults alike would be screaming, throwing bouquets, and gifts of all sorts just to get a glimpse of them.

Vanya isn’t invited of course, so she could only guess. 

‘I don’t mind, I guess. I don’t really care anymore, you know.’ She shrugs, ‘Dad doesn’t.’ She can’t quite hide the bitter edge of her tone when she says it.

His painted face stares blankly back at her.

‘You would’ve liked it though.’ She says, ‘But I bet you’re having a nicer birthday, wherever you are. Maybe the future has robot parties, or floating cakes or…. or something.’ Her voice trails off. 

‘I wish he asked me though. You know, sometimes, I don’t really feel like I belong here.’

This is one of the secrets she can’t share with anyone else. 

She would’ve told him though. Not this one. But the real Five. He would’ve understood.

_ We’re all just tools to the old man’s bidding. We don’t belong anywhere else but where we make it. _

Vanya looks at him. At his painted irises, and his gentle smile. Sometimes she thinks that if he was gone long enough, this painting would be all that’s left and she’d forget who Five really is. Everybody else is starting to.

‘It’s lonely without you. I wish you didn’t leave,’ she says.

‘I wish you stayed with me.’ 

She wished she was an important enough reason for him to stay.

But if there's one thing she’s learnt, it's that sometimes wishes aren’t always made to be granted.

Not even birthday ones.

  
  


5.

  
  
  
  


Thoughts about Five become few and far between. 

She still leaves him his sandwiches. It’s sort of a ritual now, to brush her teeth and wait in her bed until the lights are off and everyone has gone to sleep, until it’s safe enough to sneak downstairs.

But a long time of waiting can take a toll on a person.

Even Vanya has to grow up eventually.

  
  


6.

  
  


Their father’s leash becomes thinner and thinner as they get older. It’s fragments are small, like worn leather, but the evidence becomes scattered as fragmented patches in the children’s lives as time rolls on and their necks wears thin from every pull.

Klaus rolling a joint under the dining table. Allison's exclusive magazine interviews. 

Diego's police academy pamphlets stashed between the magazines underneath the bed.

Vanya sneaks out one sunny day and waits for a bus to come.

Bit by bit they're falling apart.

7.

  
  
  


The day comes when tragedy takes Ben too.

They’re all older now.  _ Old enough _ , Vanya thinks as she stares daggers into the smooth obsidian marble of her brother’s statue. Her eyes are dry. She’s shed enough tears for him. 

She’s not quite sure what she’s feeling. She thinks there should be rage, or misery after she’s grieved, but all there is is this ache in her chest and she finds that she can’t breathe anymore, in this house where her brother died and Five’s painting still stares at her with his quiet, unfamiliar gaze. Where the rest of her family are trapped in Reginald’s own war, living their lives day by day like test subjects until the day comes and they become another statue in the courtyard.

She decides that whatever's out there can’t be any worse in here. She packs her bags, stuffs the paltry amount of cash in her wallet and steps out the big, wide doors of the Academy.

In that moment, standing under the grey sky with her bag over her shoulder and her violin on her hand, she hopes that Five is proud of her, wherever he is.

**Author's Note:**

> I havent touched this fic for a year, but s2 got me missing s1 Vanya. Thanks for reading!


End file.
